"Between the pool and Gardenias"

After reading through most of Danticant’s stories, I noticed that she is very passionate about her heritage. I know that we talked about whether these stories were fact or fiction, but through her writing you cannot help but feel for the Haitian people. Her stories seem as though she is a young child sitting on her mothers, fathers, grandfathers, or grandmothers laps, and they are telling her the stories about what they experienced and went through as a Haitian nation. The stories that I have read to this point have such strong emotions; each character experiences something different, but still such passion for their nation. Danticat’s language throughout the book, uses a graphic nature or style; I feel that it was important for her to write this way because it helped her get your own pain and sorrow that she might have felt for her nation.

            

 Throughout the book, I can almost feel the pain and sorrow that each character went through, the story that caught my attention a bit more than the others, (so far), was “Between the Pool and the Gardenias”, and the reason why I chose this particular one was because I have someone close to me who was experiencing the pains of miscarriage, and the feeling of wanting a child. The poor lady would find a young girl wandering around, and finally decided that she would take the girl in, because she has wanted a child to care for so long now. When she finally got that chance to care for a girl, she could not, she has to hide her in backyard by the “pool”, and eventually she had let her go, and began to bury her “between the pool and the gardenias”, but would be caught by a Dominican. There as she laid her down “ROSE”, she pictured herself with this man and child, as the happy family she hoped for one day. You cannot help but feel for her, because for most women they wanted that happy family, but struggle to get it, and you can see how it tears them up inside and some never can recover from it. What I think this story is trying to portray, is that if you cannot conceive on your own, there are children out their waiting and wanting a family just as much as you are.